jem on jém

[ENTRY 007]

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I anticipated writing more today, given the quiet moments and niceties I was kindly afforded throughout the week. After spending a weekend with people I’m lucky to call friends, the rest of my afternoon was spent watching my roommate finish Portal 2. I did my best to coach her while giving the occasional hint and story misdirect, and to her credit, she did well compared to the first game (which I had to finish for her). It’s a game I know from front to back, so I was giddy with excitement watching her reaction in the lead-up to every single joke and plot beat I’ve had baked into my brain, all of which I think it executes masterfully.

In the spirit of finishing games, I initially planned this entry to be a semi-deep dive into The Last of Us Part II, which I only just finished yesterday. I don’t think I’ll achieve even a small puddle’s depth of critical analysis here, but deep down, I don’t think I could accomplish such a technically involved endeavour with all the time in the world (I’m sure I’ll give it a try some day when I muster the courage to make video essays). When I think about how I can express the way a piece of art has shaped me as an individual and irrevocably rewired my mind, I’ve realised I’m better off describing how it makes me feel and why it resonates with me on an emotional level, as opposed to pointing at out what makes it objectively good (that’s impossible anyway).

Days after turning 18 (here I fucking go), I wept in the car next to my Dad after failing my first practical driving test. When I look back, this may have been the last time I cried in front of my Dad, which sounds off because I may be misremembering, so I could be wrong. It was messy and, quite frankly, an unwarranted emotional reaction he didn’t deserve the brunt of, and I recall wallowing in my curtain-drawn respite for a couple of hours after. But I couldn’t spend the whole day wallowing as a virgin that couldn’t drive because I had to buy a shiny new video game that just came out. I pulled my melodramatic ass to the mall and spent ninety hard-earned dollarydoos on an experience I’d been waiting years for, prolonged a few excrutiating hours more by the fucking installation process that required two goddamned disks.

According to a saved Snapchat memory, I was greeted by the game’s menu screen at 5:15 PM in a darkened lounge, with a Friday night allocated all to myself and keen as a bean. “Man, this looks so fuckin good” and “Why is there a random boat chilling in the ocean?” were my first impressions (little did I know, I guess). I was ready to reunite with my favourite survivors of a post-apocalypse like mint-in-the-box action figures, which sounds admittedly childish or naive given the tone and level of maturity in these games, but every second spent with these characters was precious to me.

I won’t go into every detail of my experience playing the game, only that I emerged 16 days of casual play time later with a save file reading “27 hours, 13 minutes” played (according to another Snapchat memory which tells me I finished the game at 2:36 AM). After taking my time being put through the the fucking ringer emotionally, I was oddly struck by one detail: the main menu screen had changed. The lone rowboat was no longer surrounded by a faint fog and cold abyss, but was now beached on a nearby shore, with the horizon delicately illuminated by a gorgeous sunrise. This was such a beautiful detail to notice. It tells so much story with such a damningly simple yet subtle visual, but moreover, it’s just a taste of the level of care and attention to detail this game is bursting at the seams with.

I won’t stop thinking about this game ever. It’s forever etched in my mind as a baseline for telling a complex story with equally complex characters. I’m not saying every story should be like this or follow in its exact footsteps to a tee, but more than anything, I look at Part II as a work of art in every sense of the term. It’s a monument to ambition and storytelling, and what this medium is capable of, as well as a reminder that it is very much in its infancy compared to something as longstanding as film.

I’ve heard this game described in some comment section to the effect of an “ultimate exercise in radical empathy,” and I believe that to be mostly apt. For many people, it’s an oppressive sequel that bashes you over the head with its themes, justifying its own heightened realm of cruelty until you’re bloody. Obvious vitriol and bad faith generalisations of “revenge bad” (and straight up lies about how a woman can’t get shredded in a zombie apocalypse where there are zombies) aside, there are some genuinely fair and measured criticisms I’ve heard leveled against this game. It is totally believable to me that someone can be overwhelmed by the unrelenting brutality, its attempt to justify the violence on display, as well as the rigid role Ludonarrative Dissonance plays (I begrudge the use of this term and think of it more like an outdated buzzword at this point, but I digress).

Bearing all this in mind, I look at The Last of Us II as a massive swing that just so happens to hit off massively for me but not for everyone. And that’s okay. I’ll spend a lifetime defending it, and I’ll end up losing those battles most of the time. But what it’s taught me over the years is that if I care so much about how a piece of art affects me so, all I can argue, if not a laundry list of bulletproof talking points, is how it made me feel to play it. How every narrative beat worked because it corresponded to the way my brain had been shaped to receive them through the art I absorbed. For better or worse, I hold this game responsible for altering how open my mind can be, sometimes to a fault. No matter the holes you can poke with logic and reasoning, video game characters don’t always make the right decisions at the right times. Because at least here they’re people. They’re sloppy and fallible and make mistakes, and that’s on top of trying to stay alive with gun silencers made of plastic bottles.

To me, it truly earns its Part II status in the title. It’s a faithful continuation of themes established in its predecessor and the most authentic depiction of love and tragedy I’ve seen, taken to its fullest extremes with a level of care and thought poured into every decision by every department imaginable. In the genuinely immersive core gameplay and intricately intimate level design, featuring some of the most brilliantly acted sequences I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching, with an equal parts wonderfully sombre and intimately tender original score composed by Gustavo Santaolalla. This is a game that, for a fourth time now, only really clicks at the very end for me. When all the pieces finally fit into place to deliver an emotionally devastating payload of emotions, and echo that godforsaken sentiment of what could’ve been if you had done things differently. I’d pay anything to relive the game’s final moments again, but truthfully, I wouldn’t replace that experience. It makes me appreciate every sacred moment in my own life with each time I come back to it. More or less older and wiser, but still the same person.

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